Could a Lightsaber Kill Deadpool?
I finally got through the first six seasons of the Clone Wars. And yes, I got to see Deadpool & Wolverine. My overall verdict: Not as good as 1, substantially better than 2. The only really good thing about 2 was Negasonic.
Getting ready for my trip to Michigan, so some content is going to be queued. I’m still here until Tuesday, though.
The Ark 2.3 “Anomaly”
Look, Star Trek did it better. But the warp beast part was kind of fun.
Points for knowing the difference between “sentient” and “sapient.” Most of said points taken away for getting it the wrong way round. They tried.
Somebody’s looking for her genetic match in the Juno files. This can only end badly.
The warp beast is messing with the ship’s electrical systems. It feeds on electricity. Thankfully, human nervous systems don’t seem to be particularly tasty. Somebody gets electrocuted. Sad.
Eventually, they trap it in a Faraday cage and toss it off the ship. Phew. But when they drop out of warp…
…we’re about to get another episode Star Trek did better. Are these writers people who couldn’t get jobs on Strange New Worlds?
Orphan Black: Echoes 1.8 “The Paradox of Joyce”
Somebody said this show isn’t doing well with fans of the original. I don’t know what fans of the original they’re talking to, because this fan of the original is perfectly happy. Except about the fact that I can’t nominate it for the Hugos because it dropped in Australia last November, making it a 2023 production…that I didn’t get to see until 2024. It would be an insult to the Australians to say that doesn’t count.
Anyway, back to the actual show. The three printouts are working together and now Kira and Eleanor are working together again, but not back together. (I don’t think they will stay separate until Eleanor gets dramatically killed saving Jules, because Eleanor is so going to get dramatically killed saving Jules).
This episode has a focus on Eleanor’s fear of what awaits her. Because apparently the printouts have all the problems of their “primes.”
But Eleanor talks to her mother. That scene would disturb me more…okay, that scene should disturb me more.
Just saying: I miss my dad.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars 6.11 “Voices”
Q: How does Yoda survive Order 66?
A: He’s not there.
Yoda receives a message from beyond the grave, from Qui-Gon Jinn. As the vast majority of Jedi do not become Force ghosts and there’s no recent record of it, he tries all kinds of things to work out what’s actually going on.
The Council, fearing Yoda compromised, confine him to sickbay…from which Anakin rescues him.
Destination number one is, of course, the force cave on Dagobah.
Removing Yoda from Coruscant is, of course, a chess move of the force itself to preserve the Jedi with the most knowledge. He’s the oldest. His species lives a very long time…and he has seen everything.
But, of course, now Anakin’s in trouble. And while they know Dooku is merely an apprentice, they don’t know who’s really in charge…
Star Wars: The Clone Wars 6.12 “Destiny”
You know it’s a good temptation montage when you start yelling at the screen. Yoda’s temptation is, of course, a world in which the war never happened. One in which he’s not responsible for people dying. It’s well written, that is what would tempt him at this point.
But he recognizes that a pleasant falsehood is no substitute for the truth. The force ghosts training him now send him to a worse place.
It’s obvious now that if fully knowing and accepting yourself is what it takes to be a force ghost, then this can happen through formal training or through a life lived…interestingly.
(I still don’t quite buy that it’s this rare, though).
Next episode is the original series finale before they decided to go back and add a season.
The Ark 2.4 “The Other You”
Well, at least the mirror universe isn’t evil. Oh wait.
Uh.
I think we’re in the evil mirror universe and that was the good one. Especially when alt-Cat finds out that Kelly isn’t allowed to regulate her own implants.
(Then again, Alicia is definitely better off in this universe).
But the interesting thing is the divergence point in this universe is when Trust marries Cat instead of Helena. Very interesting.
Honestly, this may be the best episode yet and it’s the best in no small part because they finally stopped trying. They stopped trying to be hard SF and embraced being space opera. The technobabble works because it’s technobabble.
(Although there’s no explanation for why Brice’s clothes don’t switch universes with him when Cat’s do other than the intervention of a trickster deity).
Deadpool & Wolverine
First of all, I owe my friend Tim a lot. I wasn’t going to see the first Deadpool movie because I didn’t like Deadpool. He told me “You, specifically, need to see this movie.”
He was right.
The third in the series is not as good as the first, but better than the second. Favorite line “I hear that happens to Wolverines over forty.”
I was completely there for almost all of this, although be warned, this movie is violence. Not a typo. There’s so much violence in this movie you question your own morality and sanity every time you laugh…and it’s absolutely hilarious.
In Logan, Hugh Jackman was struggling. His stated decision not to play the character again made sense. He was creatively burned out.
In this movie, he was having a blast swanning around in the stupid four color costume. Just beingb told he could go as over the top as he wanted brought back the joy.
But the dark horse star of this movie was Emma Corrin as Cassandra Nova. Being the villain in a movie like this has to be fun – the director is not going to tell you to stop chewing the scenery, and she left plenty of tooth marks in it. She was the best Wasteland Lord since Tina Turner (and side note, I have to assume that they colluded with George for the Mad Max sequence because there was stuff in it that was not public when this was filming). She was at turns seductive, scary and, of course, funny. Women don’t often get to play over the top villains like this. I haven’t seen much of this actor before and I want to see far, far more.
Another actor that was clearly having fun…the dog! I honestly thought the dog was a CGI overlay on some poor pug, but no, she really looks like that. Her name is Peggy and she is a 5 year old pug/Chinese Crested cross. Apparently those two breeds should never be allowed to get together and I love it. She won an Ugliest Dog contest in the U.K. and was tapped for the role as a result. Which mostly involved being cuddled by Ryan Reynolds.
I will say this movie miiight have had too many crotch shots in it. I haven’t seen as many since the awful kickboxing movie I inflicted on myself over a decade ago where the hero only had one move.
Toad and Azazel showing up was nice. I didn’t recognize all the other random X types.
So, what was my problem? I had one problem with this movie. What the ehck did they do to Gambit? That was clearly supposed to be his comic costume, but it did not work. He was recognizable, but somehow managed to look like a low rent Q. Rethink that for any upcoming X-Men movie, pretty please.
But if that’s my only quibble…now, can I borrow Peggy for just a few minutes?
Star Wars: The Clone Wars 6.13 “Sacrifice”
Okay, so, Yoda does end up back on Coruscant, after almost finding out who Sidious is. Almost.
But he’s got some knowledge now…and he also knows they’re going to lose this war, that in a way they already have.
That’s a pretty decent “ending.” (the seventh season was added later). Also, Yoda versus Sidious in the mindscape was rather cool. It wasn’t real, but it was badass.
I’m always there for the little guy being badass.
However, I’m not sure I would have been satisfied with this ending, which might be why they came back. Then again, we know what happens not long after, so maybe a solid ending isn’t needed.
Let’s see what season seven added.